


hold on to whatever you find

by wolfchester



Series: for you i have so many words [5]
Category: Friday Night Lights
Genre: Babies, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 13:05:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16854490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfchester/pseuds/wolfchester
Summary: the riggins family three years down the road.





	hold on to whatever you find

**Author's Note:**

> like all the fics in this series, this was written 4 years ago and hasn't been edited. it's pretty average but hey, you can be the judge of that. just wanted to post this to get it out there in case you're like me and are dying at the lack of fnl fic on this site !!!!
> 
> also: this is meant to be part 6 of the series but i haven't written part 5 yet LOL so keep an eye out for that. just wanted to clear this out of my drafts!!!
> 
> follow me on tumblr @buckebarns

 

* * *

 

_ And we'll gather up our stash, baby _

_ Find a little ranch, baby _

_ And buy a lonely little pony to ride _

 

_ So let me finish what I start, baby _

_ Open up your heart, baby _

_ I saw a land of milk and honey in your mind _

 

_ Our flesh and blood has found me in your arms again _

_ See the whisper of the wind has found your hair again _

_ And though my heart said give me refuge in your dignity my dear _

_ All I could do was put a seashell to your ear _

 

* * *

Tyra Collette is a dreamer.

A long time ago, an eighteen-year-old version of this woman had kissed Dillon Panthers #33 Tim Riggins in the back of his pickup truck, looked up at the stars, and made a wish.

She’d wished for adventure, for culture, for new people and new experiences. To kiss someone at the top of the Eiffel Tower. To visit the White House in Washington. To fly over oceans, swim with dolphins. To be the first Collette woman to get a real-life college degree. She achieved all this, and  _ more _ .

Five years on, there’s a big piece of land on the outskirts of Dillon, and a modest but lovely house in the middle of it all. There’s Tim Riggins, older but not quite wiser, still handsome and tall and charming. There’s a ring three years old on Tyra’s finger, laughter lines under her eyes, and freckles on her skin.

And there’s a surprise.

She’s pregnant.

 

* * *

 

Her period is two weeks late, which is weird because Tyra’s always on time, always, like clockwork. So she drives herself to the Dillon Planned Parenthood Clinic to get herself a check-up. According to Mrs Williams, she’s definitely pregnant.

It’s not a bad thing. In fact, it’s a very good thing. Tim and Tyra had trying for a child almost a year after they’d gotten married. 

_ “This house is too big,” Tyra said one morning when Tim was cooking her bacon and eggs (his ‘specialty’, otherwise known as the only thing Tyra can trust him to cook without burning the house down). “I think we should have kids.” _

_ Tim stopped flipping the bacon instantly, and Tyra watched his muscles tense then relax. “Really, now? I’m not enough for you?” he said, only half-joking. _

_ Tyra walked around the kitchen island to stand behind him, putting her arms around his waist and resting her head on his back. “Of course, you’re enough for me, baby. I love you. You know that. I just- Having a kid running around, I don’t know. I think it would be good. For me. For you. For us, baby. Think about it. Can you see a little Tim Riggins running ‘round the garden out back?” She grins into his shirt and whispers: “I’d even let you teach him football.” _

_ Tim sighed and took the bacon off the heat, putting the spatula down and turning around to face his wife. God, he never got tired of thinking that. Tyra Collette was his  _ wife _. Had been for three years. He’d woken up to her face every single morning and never once got tired of it. _

_ “Hmmm, that does sound like a good idea,” Tim grinned and kissed Tyra on her cheek. “What d’you say we get started on that straight away, huh?” He had a wicked glint in his eyes and Tyra laughed as he nuzzled the soft skin of her neck. _

_ She smiled when he kissed her sweet spot behind her ear. “You’re never gonna change, are you, Tim Riggins?” _

_ “Not unless you want me to, baby,” Tim smirked, pulling her by her waist down the hall towards their bedroom. “Not unless you want me to.” _

And now she’s here, sitting on the couch next to the man she loves, who currently has his arm around her and is watching the Sports Channel. She’s trying to concentrate on the television, she really is, but she’s just so full of nervous energy that she can’t keep her body still.

Tim notices her jittering and finally turns down the volume on the television when the advertisements start blaring.

“Alright, Collette, what’s up?” he asks Tyra, placing his hand on her knee. “What’s got you all fidgety?” 

Tyra just looks down at her lap and smiles. “Nothin’. How was your day?”

Tim raises and eyebrow but goes along with the conversation. “Good, I guess. What did  _ you  _ do today?”

Then she smiles the biggest grin Tim’s ever seen in his life and says: “I’m pregnant. You’re gonna be a daddy-” her voice breaks on the last word and she starts to tear up, all the while keeping the smile on her face.

His eyes go wide and he inhales sharply. “A baby?” She nods, biting her lip. He reaches out to brush her hair away from her face, then rests his palms on her cheeks and pulls her face towards his. “You’re not- you’re serious?” Joy wells up in the pit of his belly, and when she nods her confirmation, he feels like he’s going to explode.

He pulls Tyra into a tight hug, caressing her shoulders and her back as she cries tears of happiness into his shoulder. “God _ ,  _ I love you, Tyra. We’re gonna be  _ parents _ ,” he whispers over and over again. 

Saracen had told him after he found out Tyra was pregnant that there were a lot of problems with being married to a pregnant woman. And Tim didn’t doubt that for a minute. There were the weird cravings for fish and gravy ( _ together _ , on a  _ sandwich _ ), the violent mood swings, the constant need to pee, the cramps in the middle of the night. 

But Matt never told him about the good things that went with having a pregnant wife.

First of all: her boobs. They were fuckin' massive. Like, porn-star big. It was too bad he couldn’t touch them much because she claimed they hurt all the time, but they were nice to look at. Really nice.

Second: Tyra seemed to be horny all the damn time. Even got to waking him up in the early hours of the morning because she needed a little help and couldn’t do it all by herself. That, Tim thinks, is the opposite of a problem.

Third: the feeling of his kid inside his wife’s belly kicking at the hand he had placed on her skin. It was like the kid was dancing inside of there, all limbs and fists. 

“He’s going to be a football player, baby,” Tim said the first time he felt their child moving around. 

Tyra just rolled her eyes and went to the kitchen to fix herself another fish-and-gravy sandwich. “You are insufferable, Tim Riggins.”   
  


* * *

 

 

Tyra and Tim go to the pregnancy clinic for her five-month check up on the Thursday after the Fourth of July. They’re about to find out the gender of their baby, and they couldn’t be more excited.

They’d decided beforehand that they were willing to find out before the kid was born, purely because Tim wanted to know what colour to paint the room he’d set up for it. (Tyras half-hearted arguments of “You could always paint it some kind of unisex colour, like yellow,” were shot down every time by a determined Tim: “I am  _ not  _ painting a single room in this beautiful house  _ yellow. _ ”)

The doctor puts the cool gel stuff on Tyra’s stomach (which Tim reckons looks like a hot air balloon at this point) and begins the ultrasound. A few minutes into the examination, the doctor gasps and calls in a nurse. Tim looks worriedly at Tyra. What could be wrong?

“Mr and Mrs Riggins? I think you’re having twins.”

 

* * *

 

Tim walks into their bedroom later that day to find his wife lying on her back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling with a wistful look on her face, gently rubbing her hand back and forth over her protruding belly. She doesn’t look up when he enters, just says:

“We’re having twins, baby.  _ Twins _ .”

Tim smiles and comes down to lie next to her, his arms around her waist, tucking his head into the crook of her shoulder. She kisses the top of his head and strokes his hair with her free hand like he’s a kid again. Tim rests his hand above the one Tyra’s got on her belly and then softly kisses the side of her neck.

They’re quiet for a while, just lying there on top of the bedspread, thinking  _ where to from here?  _

He doesn’t notice Tyra’s crying until she speaks again. “We did it, baby. We’re- we’re married, and we have not one but two kids on the way, and-” she sniffles a little bit and lets Tim wipe the tears out from under her eyes. She turns her head to look at him with one of her small smiles and kisses him on his nose. He closes his eyes under the soft touch lets his forehead rest against hers. 

“And you built this house, and you’re well on your way to opening up your own bar and grill, and I’m going to be the mayor of this town someday, and we’re okay, we’re okay, we’re-” she starts crying for real now, sobs escaping her throat in a heart-wrenching way that makes him wrap his arms around her a lot tighter and shift his body so she’s now the one with her head buried in his chest. He makes soothing noises as she cries out onto his shirt, rocks her back and forth like he’ll do in four months with their unborn babies.

_ It’s just hormones _ , Tyra always says when she randomly cries like this,  _ it’s the babies, I can’t help it.  _ But this time Tim knows it’s more than that. She’s crying for the things they’ve lost, the sacrifices they’ve made to get here, the hurdles they’ve overcome to be able to be lying here, in this house, a family. So many people said they couldn’t do it. That Tim would grow up to be a deadbeat just like his dad, and that Tyra would be forever stuck in a cycle of uneducated women and drinking problems. But they both got out in their own ways. Because there were a few who believed in them. For Tim, it was Billy and Coach Taylor. For Tyra, it was Tami and Julie, and Landry Clarke too. She’s crying for all of these people, all of these circumstances, all of these dreams that came true. And it’s not long before Tim’s crying, too. Silently, into his wife’s hair. 

“I’m so proud of you, baby,” he whispers over and over again into her hair. “I’m so proud of what we’ve done. You’re going to be a great mom.”

She quiets down after a while, settles further into his chest, and sighs. “I love you,” she says into the dampness of his shirt.

She’s fast asleep before he can reply, so he says it to the babies in her belly, to the people they’ve lost, the people who’ve stayed, to the heavens above and the dreams before and the things to come: “I love you, too.”   
  


* * *

 

 

The next four months are spent by Tim trying to get Tyra to eat healthier (those midnight Nutella and Rice Krispie cravings aren’t helping anyone, especially the two little Riggins’ inside her), Tyra consistently telling Tim she doesn’t need his help, then later that afternoon when she accidentally dropped a container of rainbow sprinkles onto the floor, crying into his shoulder because “now the rainbow is all over the floor!” He tries to grin and bare it, but sometimes it’s hard. Because he doesn’t always know how his wife’s feeling, or what she needs, and yeah he reads all the pregnancy books Angela brought over one day but they don’t tell you  _ everything _ . 

He settles for kissing her at regular intervals, making her feel pretty by buying her a nice dress and taking her out to dinner (where she eats enough to feed a small family - to her defense: “I am technically eating for three, Tim!”), and admittedly calling Angela a lot to ask why on earth Tyra feels the need to vacuum the carpets twice a day. The answer to everything, it seems? “Hormones _ ,  _ baby, hormones _. _ ”

He does everything because he loves her, and there’s never not been a point in all of this that he hasn’t loved her, it’s just hard sometimes, you know?

That’s why Tim Riggins rings up Coach Taylor one night while Tyra’s out with a few friends. 

“How did you do all of it, Coach?” Tim asks (he still calls Eric that even though he’s been out of high school the better part of ten years). 

“You just have to keep loving her, Riggins. It gets better, I promise, but not before it gets worse,” Coach replies. “Once the babies are born you’ll have a cranky wife, two screaming kids, midnight bottle feedings and diaper changes...you can kiss a good night’s sleep goodbye, that’s for sure. And don’t be expecting much sex either-”

Tim can’t help but groan at that one.

“-but it’s all worth it. Holding your kid, and knowing that you made that, and seeing your wife glowing with happiness when your baby takes its first step...it’s all worth it, Riggins. Every single bit.”

“Coach, her favourite craving is fish and gravy. Together. In a sandwich. Even that?”

Tim can hear Coach laugh through the phone, swears he can see him with that proud  _ you did good, Riggins  _ smile on his face. “Even that, kid.”

 

* * *

 

Tyra’s water breaks when she’s over at her mom’s having tea, and Tim’s out at football practice with Billy’s boys. Tyra is sitting quietly on her mom’s couch, listening to Angela talk about some new guy at work, when she hears a little pop low in her belly and then the feeling of liquid seeping out of her.

“Mom?” she says, calm as can be, setting her teacup down on the table. “I think my water just broke.”

Angela’s eyes go wide, and she sets into a frenzy, moving cushions around and cleaning up and asking Tyra an all manner of questions, like: “Where is that husband of yours?” and “Did you bring your emergency hospital bag?”

Tyra doesn't protest, just smiles and lets her mom do the fussing, while she picks up her cellphone and calls Tim, saying: “Honey? I’m having your babies right now. So I suggest you get your ass to the hospital.”

Over at the Dillon High football field, Tim gets a phone call that makes him erupt into the biggest smile his brother has ever seen. From past experience, Billy knows before Tim even opens his mouth, and smiles at his little brother, waving him off the football field.

“Don’t crash your car, kid!” Billy yells as Tim sprints off the field, yelling at everyone he passes that “My wife’s having babies!  _ Babies!”  _

Billy just chuckles and grins, knowing that feeling all too well.   
  


* * *

 

 

The labor is long and hard, with Tim and Tyra spending over 12 hours in the hospital waiting for their babies to come. (Well, Tim waits. Tyra spends most of her time alternately screaming at the pain and telling Tim how much she hates him for doing this to her, then crying into his shoulder about how much she loves him.)

Thankfully, the babies come only five minutes apart. A daughter, a son, a family. 

The first time Tim Riggins holds his baby daughter in his arms, it’s like the entire world was finally at a right. Like everything had come full circle. Like everything was going to be okay.

Little Lucy Anne Riggins. A head full of dark hair just like her father, squealing lungs just like her mother (not that Tim would ever say that to his wife’s face, of course). He kisses her on her damp, red forehead and whispers: "Welcome to the family, Lucy Anne. You're in for a wild ride."

Then comes along Jackson William Riggins (when Billy found out Tim'd named his boy after his brother, Billy had cried, quickly wiped away his tears, and said: "Damn it, Tim, that's about the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me." Tim had just smiled and replied: "I couldn't have done any of this without you, Billy."), with a wisp of blonde hair and a cheeky little smile. Tim's not kidding you - when that baby finally entered the world, the kid was grinning _.  _ Not screaming like his sister. Just smiling at the world around him. Holding his very own little boy in his arms makes the great Tim Riggins tear up a little bit. His own little boy, Jackson William.

But nobody on this momentous day is as beautiful-looking as his babies' mother, lying half-dead on that hospital bed, face bathed in sweat, panting like a dog and tired as hell. She is gorgeous _ ,  _ and Tim can't take his eyes off of her when she holds her children in her arms and smiles tiredly down at them (it would be the first of many tired smiles in the years to come). She kisses both her babies on the tops of their newborn heads, looks up at her husband watching gloriously on the side, and says: "We made it, baby. We did it."   
  


* * *

 

 

The little Riggins family gets by pretty damn well, if Tim does say so himself.

He takes the twins out for walks in their stroller daily to give Tyra some space to relax without two screaming children always around. The three of them visit the park, the coffee shop, get an icecream (well, Tim gets an icecream) at Alamo Freeze. Jack mostly just sleeps all the way through, but little Lucy is a real treasure, gazing open-mouthed at the world around her, like everything is new and special and exciting. She has an adventurous twinkle in her eyes, Tim reckons, just like her mother. Lucy is always trying to wriggle out of his arms when he’s holding her, always wants to explore the carpet or the grass on all fours. He can tell she’ll be the problem child, the heartbreaker, the one who’s always getting into things. They’ll have to watch out for Lucy as she gets older, he’s sure of that.

Jack is a bit different. He’s healthy and robust, bigger than his sister, with round red cheeks and fat little fingers. His grip is always tight on Tim’s finger. 

“The makings of a fine football player!” Tim said to Tyra one day. She just rolled her eyes and said what she always did:

“You are insufferable, Tim Riggins.”

(But she always kisses him when he says something stupid like that, so he doesn’t mind too much.)

Jack is lazy-eyed, always sleepy, looks at the world around him with a general dislike. His favourite thing to do is lay belly up on the couch while his daddy watches the Sports Channel. 

They’re polar opposites, the little babies, and that’s what makes them so special.

But Coach was right. Tim thinks he’s never seen anything more beautiful - even more gorgeous than his own children - than the way Tyra looks at his babies. When they’re sleeping, when they’re crying, when they’re lying half-awake on Tim’s chest in the mornings. She looks at them with a tired, sweet smile, a soft sparkle in her eyes. Then she’ll look at Tim, grin, and kiss him as she says:

“We sure did make a bunch of cute kids.”

He couldn’t agree more.

Yeah, they’re doing just fine, Tim thinks. They’re going to be okay. Because this is family, this is love, this is  _ home _ .

 


End file.
